GUIDELINES FOR LOL AUTHORS

Editors

Light of Life magazine welcomes original and unpublished articles from people who affirm the final authority of the Bible in all matters of doctrine and ethics, that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and that Jesus is the only Saviour of the world. Articles will be selected by the editors and further edited to correct errors, fit available space and to align with acceptable format, style and layout adopted by the magazine. The following guidelines have been generated to inform authors about the general standards expected in the writings. It would be helpful if those who wish to write for Light of life would keep to the following guidelines:

Form: Authors are requested to provide the articles in Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) according to the following style, format and fonts given below to facilitate editing and easy transfer to the publishing software used with the magazine.

Length: Articles should be brief, normally not exceeding 1500 words.

Spelling: We use the English spelling as used in the United Kingdom.

Font: Please use Times New Roman font with size 12. Colour or other fonts will not be used.

Headings: The main heading or title will be bold and in full capital with the same font type and size. This will be aligned at the centre at the top of the page. E.g.

THIS IS A TYPICAL MAIN HEADING

Section headings will be bold and will have the first letters of all words in capital. E.g.

This Is A Typical Section Heading
The section starts right below the heading without further line spacing. Please use section headings to divide the article into smaller divisions.

Emphasis Within Sections: To facilitate the reader’s understanding, it is often helpful to emphasise some points within the section.

Different authors may have their own way of expressing emphasis. However, a uniform style is planned to be used in Light of Life through the use of italics. e.g. Christians are to love even their enemies.

Improper Ways Of Emphasis: Using bold fonts to emphasise within a section of paragraph, as in "Christians are to love even their enemies" is not good since bold letters tend to stand out in the whole page, and attention is immediately drawn to bold words even before one reads the beginning of the page. Use of ‘ALL CAPS’ is not good since it is the equivalent of shouting at the readers as in "Christians are to love EVEN their enemies." An exception to this rule is when quoting from some Bible translations which use ‘LORD’ to denote the Hebrew for the tetragrammaton ‘YHWH’ (Jehovah) as different from the ordinary word ‘Lord.’ In that case, it is not the same as highlighting or emphasising the word.

Quotation Marks: The double quotation marks are to be used only when giving a direct quotation. E.g. Jesus said, "I will make you fishers of men." Single quotation marks are to be used when highlighting a word within a sentence to indicate some special meaning. E.g. People talk about ‘love’ when what they really mean is something else. Here, single quotation marks are used to indicate that in this context the word ‘love’ is a deviation from what it normally means. Single quotation marks can also be used to define what the previous word is referring to. E.g. The word ‘love’ is misused often.

A comma is used before or after double quotations as in the following examples. Jesus said, "I will make you fishers of men." "I can’t go there," she said. The punctuation mark ‘period’ or ‘full stop’ shall come within the double quotation marks, if it is the end of the sentence. E.g. Jesus said, "I will make you fishers of men." If there is a Bible reference given after a quotation, the ‘period’ shall come at the end. And He said, "Bring them here to Me" (Matt.14:18).

If there is a quotation within a quotation, the first one will use a double quotation, the second a single quotation, etc. E.g. I said, "He went on shouting, ‘Save me.’ " (A space is desirable between the two quotation marks, if they occur together.)

Space Between Sentences: Use only a single ‘spacing’ between words and sentences. Use of extra ‘spaces’ will waste space on the page which could be used for more material.

Indents: Even though indenting sub paragraphs, bullets and numbered lists are attractive in terms of appearance and readability, they are not normally used in Light of Life because of the small size of the columns.

Words In Other Languages: When words from languages other than English are used, they should be in italics. E.g. The Hebrew word used here is agape. ‘Paani, roti aur makaan’ is a phrase usually used by politicians.

Use Of Capitals: Capital letters are to be used only for proper nouns, i.e., names of individuals, places, unique organisations (e.g. The World Health Organisation), unique and well known items (e.g. the Gospel, the Ten Commandments, etc.). Do take care not to be liberal with capitalisation.

Scripture References: With a view to saving space, Scripture reference should be brief and without spaces within. E.g. 1Cor.13:2. 2Chro.16:1-3. Rom.8:1,4,7. 1Ti.2:1;Rom.8:2;Rev.3:1. (Layout editors will ‘break’ a long string of references, if necessary, to go to the next line.)

Names Of Books And Publications: Names of books, magazines, newspapers such as Biblical World View, Light of Life and The Times of India may be given in italics.